Bush Administration Facing Failure On Every Front


By Paul Craig Roberts


Is the Bush administration competent? There is enough information at hand on which to base an objective opinion.

On the eve of President Bush's second term, the US economy has fewer jobs than when Bush was inaugurated four years ago.

During Bush's first term, the US economy was unable to create jobs in both export and import-competitive sectors. The formerly powerful US jobs machine has been allowed to run down to the point that jobs can only be created in nontradable domestic services.

The service jobs that have been created are too few in number to offset the loss of manufacturing and knowledge jobs. Unemployed manufacturing workers, US software engineers, computer programmers, and IT workers number in the hundreds of thousands.

During Bush's first term, the value of the US dollar declined dramatically in relation to other traded currencies. The extraordinary diminution in the dollar's exchange value threatens its role as the world's reserve currency. If the dollar loses its role as reserve currency, there will be catastrophic consequences for US living standards and superpower status.(...)

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